The Blib
Blibs are generally genial in nature, posessing malicious thoughts only for the flying insects they eat. But regardless of their peacful predispositions, bodily harm is inevitable if one happens to be standing in a blib’s shadow as it falls out of the sky.
Full Description
Blibs are nearly spherical creatures, growing up to eight feet in diameter, with a large mouth and protruding, frog-like, eyes at the top portion of its body. Their tough, pinkish skin is remarkably stretchy, allowing the creatures to swallow large quantities of air, inflating themselves like balloons. Though their bloated bodies may be filled with gas, larger blibs can be quite heavy. It is also important to note that a blib’s body is completely devoid of solid structures such as bone, allowing them to heal quickly from even the most grievous of wounds.
Blibs typically live in wide open plains, free from overhead obstructions like trees. There they bounce about, consuming flying insects. Many blibs seem to particularly like bumblebees. With each bounce, the blib will go a little higher until the blib seems to completely disappear into the sky. They have not actually disappeared, of course, and will come plummeting back toward earth soon. They do not continue to bounce indefinitely, every evening they allow themselves to come to rest in a pond of lake where they sleep, floating about like great melons, until morning.
Once every couple of years, all of the blibs congregate together to migrate in a huge bouncing herd, completely flattening any town that is in their way. No one is really sure why they move or how they decide where they move to, as it seems to be a different location every time. It could be that they exhaust their food supply in any one given area, or that it’s part of some mysterious mating ritual.
Additional Information
Lore has it that the blibs were initially created by an ancient wizard with a sense of humor and a need to protect his land from an impending locust swarm. Another tale claims that they were given as gifts and pets from a very wise mage to a very spoiled young king who was ruining the country. While playing with his pets, it is said, the boy-king was squashed flat and the mage took control of the throne.
There are many documented cases of blibs being used as weapons. Often a blib will be hunted down and punctured. Once deflated, the blib is stuffed into a bottle or jar with a sealed lid. Given enough time, the confined blib will heal and fill itself with as much gas as possible. Then the blib in a bottle may be hurled into a closed room, shattering the bottle. Finally free, the blib will bounce about with great abandon, almost assuredly assassinating anyone in the room. While it may not bother the assassin, a blib, faced with evidence that it has caused a death, will almost always fall into a deep depression, loosing all its desire to bounce or eat, and eventually die.
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? Responses (15)
Nifty
great first submission Erfunden! I cant help but love these pink rubbery critters.
I enjoyed reading this entry. You have a talent for the 'turn-of-the-phrase.' Short, sweet, and chock full of detail.
Bouncy Bouncy Bounce.
LOL-Bouncy living grenades.
While I am sure the PETA will object to the use of Blib bombs, this post was certainly fun. It hits all of the important areas (potential uses, history, ecology) without bogging down in the minutae.
My kind of critter. It is well executed, well thought out, and direct. Two paws up. It is an excellent first post. Give a yahoo out for new members who check the site out for a while before they first post!
Now as I tell everyone who does a great first post.
Enjoy the glory of the moment. Bask in the cheers and backslapping.
Tommorow (or some time soon), you have to post. So hurry up and do it already.
A cute creature. :)
Only one thing to add: how intelligent are they? I would say they are not very bright, and mostly happily uncaring for others, but they do understand what is death and are obviously horrified if they cause it.
Welcome to the Citadel.
Oh boy! Criticism!
You're right, I probably should have explicitly talked about the their intelligence. I've always thought of them as on par with common birds like doves or pigeons. They're intelligent enough to have personalities and emotions but smart enough that they can solve problems, such as a parrot or racoon can do. Their entire beings are driven by a joy that causes them to bounce and stems from bouncing. One of the few things that can break through this joy, actually forcing them to see the reality around them like we see it, is the moral blow of being responsible for another being's death. And to such a happy and innocent creature such a realization is devastating.
Now I'm supposed to edit that into my submission, yes?
It would help explain why being responsible for a death bothers them so terribly much, since the rest of it paints them as rather blank happy-go-lucky creatures.
Question: Do they need to breathe, so that the assassin needs to put airholes in the jar, and thus make it a possible danger that if the glass isn't strong enough his 'bomb' might kill him? And what do they have for internal organs? Is it a kind of distributed neural network, so that there isn't a 'brain', per se?
It is not criticism, only our unending thirst for more details. :)
But yes, this bit would be useful in the submission itself. As for their real physique, I don't think we need to go that deeply (though it may be still interesting, the idea of a distributed network is interesting). And also, they may be able to 'hibernate' (or how do they get through winter anyway...).
Still, a somewhat silly creature that has its place in a fantasy world.
I ment critisism in a good way, of course.
I figure with a nural net instead of a true brain, a blib might be able to get away with no true ordans other than their eyes and two large air sacks (on for bouncing and one for slowly digesting inselcts like a carnivorous plant does). That way they're simple and thin enough that they can breath through their skin like a worm (but yes, they would probably have to breath).
These were fun and admusing then, they are still the same.
Domesticated Blibs? They would make fun pets. Since they would be well fed, they would probably float and only limitedly 'bounce'. Especially since they would have strings/ leashes on them.
I could see a small noble child, walking down the street with his governess, holding a pink ballon on a sting. The balloon rolls around and stares at the adventurers as they pass.
a good first sub with a good sense of humor to it nice one keep it up.
welcome.
Well, these are pretty darn cute. Strikes me as something I would find in various Anime series.